Fake drugs are rampant on China's e-commerce platforms. How can we distinguish between the real and the fake?

There are 20 million vitiligo patients in China, but there is no specific medicine for vitiligo. Currently, only the Hainan Boao Hospital sells the specific vitiligo medicine ruxolitinib cream, which costs 6,800 yuan a box. Bangladesh and Laos have generic drugs that are retailed at around 500 yuan a box. A friend of mine once said that I was selling expensive medicine because he found it for less than 200 yuan a box on Pinduoduo.

My first reaction was to ignore him. Common sense showed that it was definitely a fake drug. Ruxolitinib cream was approved in the United States in 2021. With a 20-year patent period, it is impossible for China to have a generic drug. At that time, I checked on Pinduoduo and found that there were thousands of boxes of this fake drug sold.

I recently had some time to check again and found that the price of Rusutinib Cream on Pinduoduo has dropped to 50 yuan, but the merchant has changed

Here is how to distinguish the authenticity of domestically produced drugs. First, the National Medical Products Administration query link https://www.nmpa.gov.cn/datasearch/home-index.html?3jfdxVGGVXFo=1735549692394#category=yp Enter the English name of ruxolitinib and you will find that there is only one approval number for oral tablets. This approval number for oral tablets is an approval number applied by a foundry company for the original research drug. Oral tablets are not for the treatment of vitiligo. There is no approval number for cream products, so the one on Pinduoduo is definitely a fake drug.

Then check the fake drug trademark Yibingrun on Alibaba Cloud Trademark to see if it is registered. Alibaba Cloud Trademark link: https://tm.aliyun.com/?spm=5176.25146149.J_1131432.1.55ad77a3gMHdbG

The query results show that it is registered and held by a self-employed person in Chengdu

The applicant is a self-employed dealer. Obviously, this fake drug is most likely sold by this self-employed dealer. So where is this fake drug produced? The famous Jiangxi Yongfeng Hormone Ointment. This fake drug den has been rampant in China for decades. Even Laotians know about Yongfeng Hormone Ointment. Its influence is so great that it was reported by the authoritative medical journal The Lancet. The relevant report link is https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_3687225

This fake drug den has become the local financial foundation. It remains safe and sound despite repeated reports and continues to poison hundreds of millions of Chinese people. There is no sign of fake drugs disappearing anytime soon.